


PASSENGER

by boneshrine



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Ableist Language, Car Sex, Drug Use, Id Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned suicide attempts, Suicidal Thoughts, Unsafe Sex, problematic content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-19 00:36:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17591423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boneshrine/pseuds/boneshrine
Summary: Jongdae is nothing but bad decisions and death wishes condensed into 170 centimeters.





	PASSENGER

**Author's Note:**

> hey, those tags? don't ignore them. this is exactly what it says on the tin.
> 
> based off of a literal interpretation of passenger by deftones
> 
> i'm really going through it right now and we all know how cathartic beating up our favorites can be

They meet in a suicide support group, and if that isn't foretelling, Luhan doesn't know what is.

Jongdae is nothing but bad decisions and death wishes condensed into 170 centimeters. Luhan has seen him around; it's hard not to in inpatient treatment, when they're packed together so closely. The hard part is getting to know each other. Talking casually is "highly discouraged." They don't like the suicide risks getting along. Gives them ideas, probably.

But right now there's seven of them unsupervised in one room as they wait for the doctor to show up. Dr. Junmyeon Kim—and he insists on them calling him by his first name because it makes him more "relatable" or something—is late. He's always late. There's a rumor going around about it; they say he's fucking the pretty nurse that always wears heels that make her legs go on for miles. They say he's always late because they have sex in his personal office in between his appointments.

That means there's no one there to give them stern looks and irritating lectures about why they shouldn't be too friendly to each other. Taking the opportunity, Jongdae slides into the chair next to Luhan. "So how'd you end up here?"

Luhan looks at Jongdae out of the corner of his eye. "What we're all here for," he replies, acrid. Regardless of how stupid it is that they can't talk casually, he isn't here to make friends. He's here because he's "a danger to himself" and "can't be trusted to live without supervision." He's over the age of eighteen, so, officially, he's here because he wants to be. The papers he signed at his intake confirm that. But unofficially, and more truthfully, he's here because his parents have made it very clear that there will be consequences if he had refused to be committed.

"I tried to hang myself," Jongdae says. Ah. Not trying to make friends, then, but instead testing Luhan, sussing out his personality. "My brother happened to be in the neighborhood when I sent him a text saying that I was finally going to do it. I should have locked the door. He got me out of the noose before I suffocated." He doesn't look away, like he's intentionally trying to make Luhan uncomfortable, make him squirm.

It won't work. Luhan knows that game. He plays it, too—just not with strangers. "I tried to overdose. I saved up all of my Ativan and finally used it. It didn't do anything except knock me out for a few days."

A snort. A condescending smirk on his cat-curled mouth. "Overdosing? That's one of the most unreliable methods. Didn't you do your homework?"

Luhan bristles. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? "Like hanging is any better. You could have seriously fucked yourself up. Worst case scenario, you'd have been paralyzed, but still have full brain function. Where would you be then? Stuck being alive without being able to do anything about it?"

"I'm using a gun next time." Jongdae says it like a promise. Bitter, maybe, but resolved. "Maybe you should, too."

Junmyeon walks in, then, with an unapologetic smile and hair messier than it did this morning. Jongdae rolls his eyes and then grins at Luhan. It seems like he passed whatever test that was.

They don't talk much until a couple of patients graduate from the inpatient program, which takes them out of the facility. To cut down on how many rooms staff have to clean and check, Jongdae is moved into Luhan's room. They start fucking three days after the move, waiting for lights out and the first check-in to pass before Jongdae slides out of his own bed in favor of crawling into Luhan's. It's a good arrangement. Luhan gets off, and he gets a thrill out of breaking the rules. They don't have lube or condoms, so they mostly suck each other off or exchange hand jobs. Some nights, when Jongdae's self-destructive BPD impulses act up, he tells Luhan to fuck him dry, and Luhan shrugs and agrees. It's not really comfortable on his dick, but a little water helps well enough.

Jongdae gets released first—not because he graduates, but because of something about insurance no longer covering treatment. Jongdae's family can't afford it otherwise. Jongdae certainly isn't sad about it. "You're pretty cool, Luhan," he says as he finishes packing his clothes into his bag. He rips out a page from his journal—the one Junmyeon "strongly encourages" that he fills out every night—and scribbles down his phone number. "I know you don't get phone calls to anyone outside of your family, but when you're out, we should hang out." Luhan doesn't have any reason to disagree.

Luhan himself never graduates. After a week and a half of being bored out of his mind—especially when Jongdae is replaced as Luhan's roommate by Kyungsoo, a small, quiet man who tried to kill himself with carbon monoxide poisoning—he checks himself out. They facility can't legally keep him in a psych hold unless he has the means, the method, and the intent to kill himself, and he doesn't have the means anymore.

Junmyeon tries to talk him out of it, but Luhan stands his ground. The doctor sighs. "Alright, Luhan, but I think this is a mistake." He brings Luhan to the administrative office to do that exit paperwork, and a staff member helps close out his file.

"Would you like to call your parents to pick you up?"

His parents will be furious and he doesn't feel like dealing with them right now. His fingers tighten around the piece of paper in his hand. "No."

Jongdae picks him up an hour later. He watches Luhan throw his bag in the back seat. He doesn't bother to turn his music down. When Luhan climbs into the passenger seat, he says, "So, you graduated?"

"No. I checked myself out. It got boring."

"Atta boy." He pulls out of the parking lot. "Where are we headed?"

"Anywhere," Luhan says. "Not here, and not home. Anywhere else."

Jongdae grins wide. "We can do that."

They end up driving around for a few hours, with no destination in mind, and barely a word exchanged.

Jongdae never puts on his seat belt.

+++

The joyrides become their "thing." Luhan stays at Jongdae's apartment and doesn't tell his parents that he checked himself out of inpatient. They'll find out eventually. Meanwhile, Luhan and Jongdae fall into a routine: eat, sleep, fuck, and drive. Sometimes they get their hands on substances—weed, and alcohol, usually, but sometimes acid. Crack, once.

Jongdae had said he's going to shoot himself, but he doesn't even have a gun with which to do it. He keeps insisting he's going to get one, but has yet to follow through. So instead of shooting themselves, they go on long car rides. Usually they ride at night. Luhan likes the clear nights the most, when he can throw down the window, stick his head out and look at the stars. Jongdae takes them out of the city and rockets through the countryside, going over seventy miles per hour on fifty-fives. Luhan feels alive.

It rains for a week straight, keeping them housebound until Jongdae can't stand it and says, "Let's go for a ride anyways."

"Really? It's pouring out there. There's a flash flood warning and everything."

"What's the worst that can happen?" Jongdae scoffs. "We die?" And, yeah, okay, that's a good point.

So they cover their heads with their hoodies and race to Jongdae's ugly little Genesis Coupe. The thing is dull and forgettable on the outside, with its tannish, grayish paint job, but the inside has personality, if nothing else. There are burn holes in the upholstery of the passenger seat where a previous owner had put out cigarettes, stains on the roof of which Jongdae doesn't know the origin even if he knows they weren't there when he bought the car, and a permanent smell of pot. Luhan loves the damn thing. Jongdae does, too, even if he complains about it constantly.

"Shit," Jongdae hisses when they duck into the car.

"What?" Luhan asks, but as the word leaves his mouth, he sees the problem: the driver's side window is wide open. The inside of the car is soaked with rainwater now.

"I left the goddamn window open," Jongdae says. "My ass is all wet. Shut the hell up," he adds when Luhan snickers at his expense. He starts up the car and the stereo roars to life with one of those edgy alternative metal bands he likes before rolling the window closed. They don't linger. Jongdae tears out of the neighborhood like a bat out of hell, and soon enough, they leave the city altogether, shedding off the buildings and the lights in favor of the dark, lonely highways through crop fields and pastures.

The weather report hadn't been exaggerating the potential for flash flooding. The rain beats down without remorse, bludgeoning the windshield, cutting into view under the headlights. It's not windy, though, so at least it's a steady downpour. There's a certain kick to it. It doesn't beat driving during a starry night, but zipping through the storm is thrilling in a different way, and Luhan's veins thrum with a sort of excitement that borders hysteria. He presses his face to the cool glass of the window, watching the raindrops and feeling them like they hammer through his own body.

He opens the window.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"It feels nice."

"It feels wet!"

"Your car is already wet," Luhan points out.

Jongdae pauses before laughing. "Shit, you're right."

The cold, wet air whips into the car, and Luhan feels himself lighting up with each slapping gust. He's alive. He doesn't want to be, even now. Not really. But this, something is different about this.

"Drive faster," Luhan says. He doesn't expect Jongdae to hear him, honestly, not with the music so loud. Not with the wind carrying his voice into the din of the rain.

But Jongdae says, "I'm already pushing eighty, fuck off. I can't see shit outside of the headlights, and the rain is bad enough that we could hydroplane."

Luhan shifts his gaze to Jongdae. He's beautiful like this, the focused look in his eyes, the firm, dominant way he keeps one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on his thigh. In another life, Luhan could have loved him. Could have found a reason to live in him.

But this is this life. "What's the worst that can happen?" Luhan asks him, pulling away from the window to lean towards Jongdae. He places his hand on Jongdae's knee and slowly drags it up his inner thigh. Yes, this is _this_ life, and if Luhan wants to fuck it up by falling apart with Jongdae, then who's to stop him? "We die?"

Jongdae barks out an incredulous laugh. "You're crazy, Luhan. You're out of your goddamn mind." But his thighs drop open anyways, granting access to the space between them.

It's not the first time they've fucked around in the car, but it is the first time they've done anything while moving. The adrenaline of hurtling through the back roads and the lash of the wind through the car is putting him into a frenzy, and all he can think is _faster_ and _touch._ Arousal creeps down his spine.

It's easy to pull Jongdae's cock out of his sweatpants. He's not hard yet, but Luhan can change that easily. He spits in his hand, uses it to stroke up and down. "Jongdae," he murmurs, "go faster."

"Out of your goddamn mind," Jongdae repeats in a shaky voice. Luhan feels the car accelerate, though, and elation, arousal, and trepidation all boil inside of him until he feels like he's going to burst. He strokes Jongdae faster, and out of the corner of his eye watches the road twist abruptly. Jongdae yelps and jerks the car sideways, and they tilt precariously for a moment, a little too far to be safe, but then the car steadies again, zipping forward in the new direction. Jongdae laughs, wild. He's harder in Luhan's palm now. Luhan is hard, too, but more than anything, he wants to make Jongdae feel as unhinged as he does.

So he dips down, slides his lips across the head of Jongdae's dick, letting the saliva pool at the corners of his mouth and drop down. Jongdae makes a truncated grunt above him. Luhan doesn't waste time teasing, spurred forward by the adrenaline. He sinks down on Jongdae's cock, using his fist to twist over what he can't fit in his throat.

"Fuck, Luhan," Jongdae groans. Luhan hums and forces his head farther down, and Jongdae chokes. There's a roaring in Luhan's ears, now, something louder than the rain and the music and Jongdae's moans. He wants this, wants this almost as much as he wants to die, with the same sort of hopeless desperation. He wants Jongdae's pleasure, wants Jongdae's everything, even if Jongdae, behind all of his bravado, is just as broken as he is and has nothing left to give.

"Go faster, Jongdae," Luhan says, pleads, before taking him in as far as he can.

There's another guttural moan above him, little aborted thrusts into Luhan's mouth, a hand twisted harshly into Luhan's hair, painful and heady. Jongdae is thick and hot in his mouth, and Luhan forces himself down even more, forces through the resistance in his throat.

Jongdae is nothing but bad decisions and death wishes, but that's all Luhan is, too.

Luhan feels the car lurch, and he knows just by the severity of the tilt that it isn't going to rebalance itself again. He's thrown back against the seat, and for a moment, he's flying, and falling, and the last thing he feels is overwhelming _relief._

**Author's Note:**

> **1 DEAD, 1 CRITICALLY INJURED IN LA CROSSE CRASH**
> 
> Tuesday, June 25th, 2019, 10:19 am  
>  _Chanyeol Park_
> 
> LA CROSSE, WI—A totaled car was found early Tuesday morning off of the side of a backroad east of La Crosse. Two men were discovered at the scene but remain unidentified. Authorities suspect that the driver lost control of the car due to hydroplaning during the flash flood conditions on Monday night. Authorities have confirmed that the driver was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from the car seat through the windshield; he was likely killed instantly. The passenger was wearing a seat belt and is in critical condition at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center.
> 
> Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call the La Crosse County Police Department at . . .


End file.
